Tips for Becoming a Freelance Financial Consultant

Is your office job getting you down? You’re not alone. Studies show that 60% of millennials left their last job position in under three years, while there has been a 63% rise in the number of people going freelance in the past decade. If you’re skilled in the financial sectors, it may be worth skipping the nine to five and opting to go freelance.

While it is possible to become a self-taught financial specialist, a degree from a respected institute such as the London School of Business and Finance will provide you a solid foundation from which to do business. By following their tips for success as a freelance financial consultant, you should begin to make a healthy living, enjoying the freedom of flexible working hours.

Get the appropriate training

An academic degree will offer you much more than a professional qualification – it will introduce you to likeminded people, linking you with plentiful business networks and prospective clients. Use this time wisely – getting top grades is important, but forming great working relationships and identifying lucrative areas of business is also highly valuable, should you suspect that you wish to go freelance. By maintaining an exemplary academic record and projecting a willingness to learn, you will gain the respect of lecturers, whose endorsements and recommendations may well secure you your first pieces of work. Not sure which course is for you? LSBF have a wide variety of specialisms, ranging from accountancy to creative industries management.

Consider working to build contacts

If you’re planning on going freelance straight after graduating, it can be difficult to gain professional respect amongst the market place unless you have some impressive pervious credentials. Even if freelancing is in your long-term goals, it may be worth earning your stripes within a larger company for a few years. Use the time to accumulate as much knowledge and experience as possible, with the comfort of knowing that you have a regular pay check at the end of each month to help ease the start-up costs of going it alone. Working for somebody else will give you plenty of time to analyse the marketplace, work out the monetary value of your time and access whether the industry is likely to accommodate another freelancer.

Define a niche

Freelance financial analysts can be reasonably easy to come by if you know where to look, so defining a niche will make you stand out as somebody who is an expert in a particular field, rather than a jack-of-all-trades. By focusing on wealth management instead of accountancy, or social management instead of stockbroking, you can align yourself to fast-growing trends and outpace the competition.

You may need to charge a little lower in the first place to gain early interest, but always remember your worth – to succeed in freelance business, you need to build your brand in a way that is sustainable to your own personal needs. Before you leave your current job, take the time to work out your monthly expenses, and charge your services accordingly.

Create a schedule

Although working from home will save considerable amounts of money when it comes to commuting costs or office rent, spending all day in your pyjamas quickly becomes a bore. Even though you are now in charge of your own time, working regular office hours is a great way to instil discipline, retain concentration and remind your clients that you deserve a work-life balance. However, in the early days, it is recommendable to at least offer availability in the evenings, as it is this flexibility which may help you to win business over a more established organisation who only operate nine to five.

To learn more about studying to become a financial analyst, visit the LSBF profile on Masters Portal here.